Another from my Provia roll this weekend. When I first ran these negatives through the scanner (I always check the “develop only” box now that I have a negative scanner, and Ritz still charges $4.50), I was disappointed. They had the graininess and sharpness that I like from my cross processed rolls, but the color shifts were minimal and the dynamic range was impossibly thin. I bracketed each shot, and in many cases one was underexposed and one had blown highlights all over. Is Provia a bad film for cross processing? A quick Flickr search suggested that this is definitely not the case.

So why did my film look funny? Turns out the automatic exposure software in my scanner doesn’t handle weird negatives very well (specifically the white point setting). Once I went back and set it manually, I got some very interesting results. Here’s one in color:

Minolta XD5, probably an old MC 50mm f/1.8 (it could have been the 28mm, and I really should be able to tell), Fuji Provia 400F expired September 2004 and cross processed at Ritz.

Having photographers’ block combined with days and days of rainy weather means I really have to be creative (or uncreative) with my shooting. After spending the last few days looking at various old Nikkors on eBay (which I know I’ve sworn off before), I decided to try my hand at an eBay-style product shoot. Quick, dirty, and cet up with a “borrowed” flash, an $11 optical slave, and printer paper.

Here‘s another version with the original white background. What do you think? To me, it’s technically better but less interesting.